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In the 2018 Malware Forecast released this week, we see Android malware on the march, with ransomware an ever-increasing threat. According to SophosLabs analysis, the number of attacks on Sophos customers using Android devices increased almost every month in 2017.

The number of malicious Android apps has risen steadily in the last four years. In 2013, just over a half million were malicious. By 2015 it had risen to just under 2.5 million. For 2017, the number is up to nearly 3.5 million.

Rowland Yu, a SophosLabs security researcher focusing on mobile malware, said that in September alone, more than 30% of the malicious Android malware processed by SophosLabs was ransomware.

Looking at the top Android malware families since the beginning of 2017, Rootnik was most active – 42% of all such malware stopped by SophosLabs. PornClk was second most active at 14%, while Axent, SLocker and Dloadr followed behind at 9%, 8% and 6%, respectively.